Waterfalls (4 page)

T
he uninvited guest slowly applauded Meredith’s story. She struggled to unwedge herself from the floor of the cab.

“Only one problem,” the man said. “Starfish live in salt water, and ducks swim in fresh water.”

“It’s only a story,” Meredith protested, one arm grabbing the seat and the other one pushing against the underside of the dashboard. Her right leg had fallen asleep.

“Nevertheless, integrity of story is the crucial element in all quality fiction,” he said.

Meredith raised her eyebrows and took a good look at this guy. “Gabriel Kalen,” she said slowly. “Gabriel Kalen said that in his book,
The Art of Story
. I quote him all the time in my workshops.”

Now Mr. Wartman’s eyebrows arched with apparent interest.

Meredith was unstuck enough to pull her body out of the cramped space. She raised herself onto the seat without the
slightest bit of grace and wondered if this man had figured out yet that she was the nightmarish, avocado-faced vision that had greeted him less than an hour earlier. If he did know, he wasn’t letting on.

She calmly brushed back her hair and straightened herself with as much dignity as possible. Meredith handed Wally-the-star-turned-starfish to Travis. He held the soft figure to his cheek and sucked on his fingers.

“Have you met Gabe?” Mr. Wartman inquired.

“Gabe?” Meredith echoed.

“Gabriel Kalen.”

“No,” Meredith said. She wasn’t sure where to look, at Travis or at this fine example of God’s creation who was standing only a few feet away.

Kyle and Jessica came down the front steps of the house hand in hand. Jessica held a picnic basket, while Kyle had slung the duffel bag over his shoulder. Meredith knew her intriguing yet embarrassing encounter with this man was about to end.

“Have you?” she asked quickly, tucking her hair behind her ear and casting her ocean green glance at him. “Have you met Gabriel Kalen?”

“Yes,” he said, resting his arm on the rim above the door and leaning forward out of the sunshine. He took in a full view of Meredith, and she was uncomfortably aware of how intensely he was studying her. Would he figure out who she was? Had he already?

“Everybody ready?” Kyle called out when he was a few feet away from the truck. “Did you two meet?”

“Daddy!” Travis cried out, pulling his fingers from his mouth. “Daddy!”

“I’m here, big guy,” Kyle said, tossing the duffel bag, which
looked exactly like a diaper bag, onto the backseat. “You ready to go?”

“I’m heading over to the conference center now, too,” Mr. Wartman said. “Would one of you like to ride with me?”

“Why don’t you take Meredith with you?” Jessica suggested. “I wanted to talk with Kyle on the way over.”

“Meredith,” he repeated slowly as if he had just figured out the missing word in a long crossword puzzle. “Would you like to ride with me, Meredith?”

Knowing she couldn’t refuse, she slid out of the cab and silently followed him to his black convertible. Her heart was pounding but not too much. She felt foolish that he had seen her on the floor of the truck but not too foolish.

In the past, this would have been a Barbie dream come true, a perfect moment to launch into a flirting campaign. But her sister had drilled into her that flirting was not the best way to get a man’s attention. Meredith had come to realize it wasn’t the most forthright, honest way to get to know someone. Mentally, she agreed with all these concepts.

Still … all Meri’s clever lines gathered in a row in her head and stood at attention. She reviewed the troops and selected the finest. If she were to flirt, she would employ these lines. They would slide in undetected, hit their mark, and not leave a trace of their presence behind. The poor, unsuspecting Mr. Wartman would never know what hit him. But she must not release any of those flirty missiles. She must not.

He opened the door for her, and she slid in gracefully. The sun had been baking the leather seat, and the instant Meredith’s flesh touched it she let out an unplanned, “Yeouch!” She quickly pressed her lips together to silence them. That was definitely not one of the chosen phrases. Who let that renegade loose?

“You okay?”

“Hot seat,” she said with a sheepish grin. She pulled her sunglasses from her shirt pocket and rolled up her white sleeves.

Elegant, that’s the look you’re after here. Grace Kelly in hiking boots. Pay no attention to the third-degree burns on the back side of your thighs. You are as calm and cool as a summer breeze
.

Meredith reviewed what she knew about this man as he pulled a pair of sunglasses from the visor. How did he know about the playwright Gabriel Kalen? Kalen had created a screenplay based on one of the classics for which G. H. Terrison Publishing held the rights. That was before Meredith began working for them, but the video sales had hit four million copies in the first year and put G. H. Terrison on the map with their quality children’s products.

She wanted to pepper this mysterious Mr. Wartman with questions but knew it was best to let him go first. No sense scaring him off. She would keep a poker face and let him play the first card.

He came to the end of the driveway, slowly easing over the bump and said, “The conference center is to the left, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Meredith said. “Turn left here.”

He eased onto the uncrowded main road. They drove under the lacy shadows of the great cedars and hemlocks that lined this stretch of country road.

“Sorry about the, ah, mix-up in your room this morning. My mistake.”

“Oh,” Meredith said, glancing at him with controlled calm.
So he knows. He’s being awfully gallant about this
. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”

He smiled, keeping his eyes straight ahead on the road.

Meredith couldn’t contain herself anymore. Their absurd first encounter was just too funny. She tossed her head back
and released her contagious laughter. It filled the silent space between them like a hundred iridescent soap bubbles, each one floating gleefully before popping with a fizz.

He laughed with her. “You’re Shelly’s sister, aren’t you?” he asked after each of the invisible giggle bubbles had disappeared.

“Yes.” She decided to play one of her cards. “And you are …?”

He didn’t fill in the blank with a proper introduction. Instead, he glanced at her, then back at the road, then at her, and again at the road. “What do you know about me?” he asked.

“You sleep with your shoes on,” she said quickly. “Like a horse.”

He laughed again, unaided by her infectious giggle. “What else?”

“Kyle called you Mr. Wartman.”

“Did he? Mr. Wartman, huh?”

“Yep. And that’s it, Mr. Wartman. That’s all I know. Oh, except you flew in from New York last night.”

“And boy, are my arms tired,” he quipped.

Now Meredith laughed on cue.

He looked at her, then back at the road, then back at her.

“What?” Meredith felt unnerved by his glances. She checked all her buttons.

With another glance he raised an eyebrow and said, “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Should I?”

“I’m your sister’s old neighbor,” he said smoothly.

“Ah, the little old neighbor from Pasadena,” said Meri. She invisibly gave herself one “witty” point.

“I remember seeing pictures of you. But you seemed much younger.”

“All Shelly had was our baby pictures, right?”

“There was one of you all in black,” he said. “Your hair was different. You were holding a musical instrument, and you were sitting next to an older gentleman.”

“That was taken about four years ago. The instrument was a flute.”

“Do you still play?”

“Only for fun. That picture was taken at my last recital.”

Then, because there was a pause, she added for flair, “The older gentleman in the picture was my first husband.”

“Really?”

“No.” Meredith laughed.
He’s gullible. This is good
. “He was my high school band instructor. I don’t know why Shelly likes that picture.”

Meredith just realized she had laid down nearly all her cards and this mystery man sat there still holding almost a full hand. “You’re not Brad, are you?” Meri asked. She remembered hearing about Shelly’s neighbor Brad because he had married Shelly’s former roommate, Alissa, a few months ago. Shelly was in the wedding.

“No, I’m not Brad.”

“You’re the other guy.”

“I’m the other guy.”

Meredith flew through her memory files trying to remember something, anything, about Shelly’s old neighbors. Nothing came to mind. No names, no bits of information. He seemed to be able to read the “vacant” sign across her forehead.

“I can see Shelly had a lot to say about me.”

An uncomfortable wave washed over Meredith. Had Shelly dated this guy, and had it been a bad experience? It would feel awfully strange to show up at Shelly’s with one of her old boyfriends, especially if Meri didn’t even know his name. Apparently, Meredith Jane Graham, the queen of cat-and-mouse
games, had met her match.

“Turn left at the next road,” Meri said, suddenly paying attention to where they were. “It’s about a mile and a half from here.”

He turned. The car hummed along. The wind blew through her hair. He smiled a straightforward, closed-lipped smile and said nothing.

Meredith knew they were almost there. She had to play the last of her cards since he was refusing to lay down any of his. “So, do you want me to go around calling you Mr. Wartman all day?”

He glanced at her again and said, “You can call me ‘J.’ ”

“Jay,” she repeated.

He nodded. “Is this the entrance? Nice sign.”

Meredith was filing the info.
Jay Wartman. What a horrible name. If I were this guy, I would have changed it long ago
.

“Have you been to the waterfall here?” he asked.

“Several times,” Meri said. “It’s beautiful. Jonathan has transformed the whole area so the waterfall feeds into a small lake. They even have a few boats.”

“Really? How’s the lighting?”

“The lighting?”

“Yes. Is there a lot of open space over the lake, or does most of the sunlight come through the trees?”

Meri laughed. “I’ve never noticed.”

He parked the car and unplugged the cell phone that had been recharging off the cigarette lighter.

Meredith didn’t know if she should open her door and go her own way or wait around for Jay to say something. To her surprise he reached over and carefully removed something from her hair. He showed her the dead bug he had extracted from her tousled, silky locks.

“The disadvantage of riding in a convertible,” Jay said.

“It was a greater disadvantage to that fellow than it was to me,” Meredith said.

Jay smiled and let a low chuckle rumble from his broad chest. “Do you need to get up to the conference center right away?” he asked. “Or do you have time to show me the way to the waterfall?”

Now Meredith felt they were getting somewhere. “Sure. Let’s go before my sister realizes I’m here and hands me one of her to-do lists.”

“Does she still make people take off their shoes before they come into the house? She was fastidious about that in Pasadena.”

“Not so much anymore,” Meredith said. “She and Jonathan live in a log cabin here on the property, and it’s impossible to keep out the dirt. Especially with Bob Two.”

“Bob Two?” Jay asked, tucking his keys into his jeans pocket.

“He’s their dog. A pathetic cocker spaniel.”

“You don’t like dogs?”

Meredith shook her head. “Too slobbery. Too hairy. Too hyper. Do you like them?”

Jay paused. “No, too eager.”

Slow down, Meri! You’re going to spook him with questions that appear to be fishing for common interests. Let him speak. Play it cool. Don’t give out too much information. Whatever you do, don’t act too eager
.

Jay opened his door and popped up the trunk. Meredith opened her own door. She walked around to the back of his car and peered into the trunk. Several black luggage bags were neatly lodged in the space. Jay pulled out a smaller bag and slung it over his shoulder.

Just then Jessica and Kyle pulled up and parked the truck. Kyle walked around to open Jess’s door and then unstrapped Travis.

Jessica came toward them with the wicker picnic basket slung over her arm. “Do you know how to get to the waterfall?” she asked Jay.

“Meredith has agreed to act as tour guide,” he said.

“Why don’t you guys take this with you?” Jessica said, handing them the basket. “It’s just the leftover fruit and muffins from breakfast. I don’t think either of you had time to eat. There are some great picnic spots near the waterfall.”

“Thanks,” Meri said, accepting the outstretched offering. “Tell Shelly I’ll be up to the lodge in a bit.”

Jessica smiled. The scar curled up on her top lip. “Take your time,” she said. “Moments at the waterfall should not be rushed.”

M
eredith and Jay took off down the wooded trail that led to the waterfall. He offered to carry the basket for her, but Meredith said it was no problem. He had his arms full with all his gear, and she could certainly manage a wicker basket.